Rason , North Korea -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- As the sole Western journalist covering a unique bicycle race in North Korea last month , I was provided with a personal guide , a car with a driver and the promise that I was free to take any photographs I wanted . As a journalist , it seemed like an incredible opportunity to document a small snapshot of what North Korea was really like .

However , the promise turned out not to be completely true .

At the border , before going back to China , a group of security guards confiscated my camera and erased all images they thought were inappropriate , or did not portray the country in a favorable light .

The North Korea I was n't meant to see

But with the help of a computer expert in Hong Kong , I managed to get all the pictures back .

Officially , I only had two restrictions to obey during my trip : No photos of the military or military facilities and all shots of portraits of Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong-Il had to show their entire figures . And I was under no circumstances allowed to walk off alone .

My guide , Ko Chang Ho , was surprisingly friendly and talkative . Contrary to the propaganda machine I was expecting , the 42-year-old father of two talked at length about his days as an English student in Pyongyang and his interest in international literature . His favorite author was William Shakespeare ; the last book he read was Sir Walter Scott 's classic novel , `` Ivanhoe . ''

We also talked about why the outside world has such a negative view of North Korea ; something he was very sad about . He loved his country and I chose my words carefully .

Many times I asked Ho if it was okay to take photos of police , guards , power stations , refineries , train tracks and other objects I suspected would be considered sensitive by the secretive regime . `` Go right ahead , '' he would say with a smile . Driving though the countryside , I asked the driver to stop by the small villages . `` No problem , '' said my guide . `` Just be polite to the peasants . They are not used to Westerners with big cameras . ''

Westerners race into North Korea -- by bike

By the finishing line of the cycle race in the city of Rason , I was running around trying to get good shots of the riders coming in as well as of spectators and the city itself . My guide had a hard time keeping up with me , but he never once told me to lower my camera or slow down .

It was all very informal . After the race , I had a chat with the vice mayor of the Rason Special Economic Zone , Hwang Chol Nam -- who to my surprise spoke fluent Swedish after studying in Europe .

And in the evening I sat down with a couple of young women from the local tourist office and had a conversation -- in Mandarin through an interpreter -- about relationships and everyday life in North Korea . They explained that although some North Korean marriages still were staged because of family ties to politics , almost all are today based on love . They said most of their friends and local teenagers are studying Mandarin to do business and network with the growing number of Chinese visiting the region .

The following day , I had my first clash with the authorities . After breakfast I decided to go for a walk alone . While the guides and the other officials were busy , I walked out the hotel to the parking lot by myself . I did n't manage to get more than 10 meters before a uniformed guard saw me and led me back to the hotel lobby and told my guide that I had wandered off .

The real setback happened just minutes before I was to cross the Tumen River and go back to China . At the border , a group of guards called me over and demanded to check my camera .

Despite my objections , one of the guards erased picture after picture . I tried to look over his shoulder to see what he was deleting , but he kept turning his back to me so I could n't see . Every time he hit the delete button , I felt the frustration build . My guide said they were erasing `` inappropriate '' pictures , with no further explanation . In total , 90 images were erased from the memory card .

Behind the veil : A rare look at life in North Korea

I was annoyed but not surprised .

Back in Hong Kong I got in contact with a small IT company that specializes in data recovery . After leaving me waiting impatiently for 24 hours , they finally got back to me . All the photos had been saved .

`` When they deleted the file on the card , they did not delete the whole file instantly , it just released the space of this file for future use -- the content is still there , '' Benjamin Wong , owner of Vector Data Recovery explained to me .

Looking at the censored photos , I was surprised about the selection . Some were of angry looking security guards with scruffy barracks in the background , others of government officials going through our passports . I could just about understand that . But others were in my eyes harmless , even scenic . There was an old couple walking alongside the cornfields , a family out in the countryside waving from their house , and a mother cycling with her sleeping baby on a seat on the back of her bike . One photo showed a volleyball pitch next to the customs building by the border crossing .

Why these images are not in line with North Korean image guidelines is for me a mystery . But so are a lot of things about the world 's most isolated country .

The North Korea we rarely see

@highlight

Journalist Johan Nylander covered an international bike race from China into North Korea

@highlight

Promised full access while in North Korea , guards later deleted 90 of his photos

@highlight

Nylander recovered the photos deemed offensive by government minders

@highlight

Deleted photos often showed North Korean security guards , peasants in the countryside